6.5 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 2.5 | |
Overall | 2.5 |
The chilling true story of a newly married FBI poster boy assigned to an Appalachian mountain town in Kentucky. There he is drawn into an illicit affair with an impoverished local woman who becomes his star informant. She sees in him her means of escape; instead, it's a ticket to disaster for both of them. This scandal shook the foundations of the nation's top law enforcement agency, ending in the first ever conviction of an FBI agent for murder.
Starring: Emilia Clarke, Jack Huston, Sophie Lowe, Johnny Knoxville, Austin HébertThriller | Insignificant |
Crime | Insignificant |
Action | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English SDH, Spanish
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Digital copy
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 2.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 0.5 | |
Overall | 2.5 |
It may indicate nothing other than the often baffling vagaries of show business in general and the film industry in particular, but it’s nonetheless at least passingly interesting that Above Suspicion bears an actual copyright date of 2017 in its closing credits, but has a 2019 release year listed on the IMDb (in Lebanon, of all places), but is only appearing in the United States now, more or less half way through 2021. That delay, or at least rather long gestational period, may seem especially odd since Above Suspicion is one of those “ripped from the headlines” affairs that comes replete with the seemingly obligatory “based on a true story” imprimatur, and it features a rather unexpected performance by Game of Thrones’ Emilia Clarke as a southern fried vixen named Susan Smith who was a real life FBI informant who bedded the Kentucky agent assigned to her, and then paid with her life for the effort. In fact, the film begins a la Sunset Boulevard, with a corpse, in this case Susan’s, narrating the proceedings and providing quasi-metaphysical musings about the wending state of affairs that ultimately brought Susan to her demise.
Above Suspicion is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.40:1. The closing credits for the film thank Arri Alexa cameras, so I'm assuming that's how the film was shot and/or captured, and I'm also assuming there was a 2K DI. This has both the pluses and minuses that I often cite in Alexa material I've personally reviewed. When lighting conditions allow, detail levels are often superb, with nice, precise renderings on everything from fabrics to facial pores. Even in some heavily graded material, fine detail is still quite evident more often than not, and as can be seen in several of the screenshots accompanying this review, Above Suspicion tends to ping pong between blue and yellow sequences, with only relatively rare "normal" grading employed. The major minus in this presentation is the frequent murkiness of some of the most dimly lit material, and in that regard it's perhaps arguable that the yellow grading tends to add to the perception of haziness more than the blue material.
Above Suspicion features a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix that features some intermittent immersion in some of the outdoor material, where ambient environmental sounds can waft through the surround channels, as well as a couple of more hyperbolic sequences where various mayhem breaks out. Some of the interior material, as in some of the domestic scenes in the double wide shared by Cash and Susan, can at least occasionally offer good directionality. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly with no problems whatsoever. Optional English and Spanish subtitles are available.
Emilia Clarke is probably the best reason to check out Above Suspicion, a film which purports to be "ripped from the headlines", which it actually is, at least in its broader outlines, but which wants to tart up the proceedings with "colorful" supporting characters and stylistic flourishes which seem patently at odds with a supposedly "based on true life" tale. Since the story begins at the end, so to speak, there's too little suspense despite a surplus of psychological angst demonstrated by several key characters. Technical merits are generally solid for those who are considering a purchase.
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